The tussle concerned a child, which led me to think about its taking a village to raise a child. Someone--not the tussler--suggested that if I can't name the kid, it's not my village. I respect someone's thinking that I was out of line, though of course I don't share it; I do not respect the name division.
One time at a neighborhood ice cream shop, I saw a toddler playing on the bike rack as if it were a jungle gym. He was close to the curb and ignoring the street inches away. I walked over with my cone, keeping on eye on the kid before a parent came out of the store and thanked me. I couldn't name that kid; was its safety not my concern? A few years ago a man watched his grown male friend lure a little girl into a public lavatory; the man knew the friend was going to rape and kill the girl but did nothing to prevent the friend's actions or to alert anyone who would safeguard the child. He could not name the child, but he damn well shirked his responsibility to her.
At the Vietnam Memorial, a very little boy crouched at my feet and picked up a photograph someone had left below the names. I crouched myself to address him eye to eye. I asked, "Is that yours?" and he looked around in consternation. His father had been several feet away and now came to scoop him up and take the photograph from his hand. "He doesn't understand," the father apologized to me. "No, of course not," I replied. And that was that. I shouldn't have said "No, of course not," though. That didn't express what I thought, which is that the the boy was being a little boy, which is a fine thing to be, but having picked up and examined this curiosity, he shouldn't be allowed to keep it.
That's my ongoing problem in unrehearsed speech in unexpected situations, that I don't think quickly enough to respond cogently and evenly.
I am not sure whether this is Tracey Chevalier's first or second book, but I know that this and Girl with a Pearl Earring are her earliest. And that she should have stopped there.
On Sunday after breakfast with Ernie and Seahorse, we drove down the Roaring Fork valley, drier and wider and drier yet, into Glenwood Canyon, from which we climbed (not a climb but a steep hike) to Hanging Lake.
Pretty.
I banged my knee on the way down. I have not had a scraped knee in some time and was feeling way too much like a grown-up. Now I have scabs on both knees and am feeling more like myself.